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ATLAS Meteor Tracking System Gets $5M NASA Funding
An anonymous reader writes "After a huge meteor recently exploded over Chelyabinsk (population 1,130,132), Russia, NASA has approved $5 million for funding for ATLAS project (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System). From the article: '"There are excellent ongoing surveys for asteroids that are capable of seeing such a rock with one to two days' warning, but they do not cover the whole sky each night, so there's a good chance that any given rock can slip by them for days to weeks. This one obviously did," astronomer John Tonry of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii told NBC News Friday.'"
They applied for a grant in 2011 and it was approved then. This summary implies that NASA has been scrambling this weekend to fund something in the wake of the Russian meteor explosion. The project has been in the works for YEARS.
http://www.fallingstar.com/nasa_funding.php
Since when does NASA have money?
The ATLAS system's funding is a step in the right direction but as the article mentions the southern pole would remain a blind spot. Still, having one to two day's notice for an affected area would go a long way. We seem to have most of the >150m asteroids located through current efforts but that still leaves thousands or millions of undetected objects capable of wiping out a city and causing further catastrophe for nuclear facilities. The cost vs. benefit seems evident, better late than never.
That meteorite was only 15 to 17 meters long.
The size of its blast was due to its tremendous energy (a.k.a. speed) when it penetrates our atmosphere....
Reference.
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
no alerts are deemed necessary?
5 million seems a bit like peanut change for something like this, I can't imagin that it will go far.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I doubt if theres anything to worry about ------ www.themotorclubofamerica-mca.com
"Pardon me sir, but it's a BIG ASS sky"!
The sad fact of meteor discovery, is that there is a threshold on size that we will not be able to identify. We knew the 150ft meteor, DA14, was going to pass within 17K+ miles of Earth because of a previous swing. The meteor that came in over Russia came out of no where. At 7000 tons, it was a pretty damn small object considering the damage it caused.
There's no easy answer solution to the 'meteor problem'. Would scanning spherically, at Lagrange points make a difference? No doubt more money will have 'some' impact, but this is a probing measure only. It does nothing in the event that we find one on an impact trajectory. I guess, one thing at a time, right?
OK, first off, tracking such objects is a useful exercise, for many reasons, not just for the OMG, WE'RE GONNA GET HIT, crowd.
Unfortunately, it's practically useless for the purpose it's being touted for. That is, to give short notice warning of an impending impact.
Firstly, given the design criteria, we're looking at 48 hours notice, maximum, before an impact. Note that at the outer edge of this prediction envelope, it's a predicted impact - that is, one with a significant change of impact, but not a certainty of one. Now, hopefully, people would take this as seriously as we now do Tsunami Warnings. But think about it one more step:
Secondly, the impact area simply can't be computed until relatively shortly before impact. That is, if we detect the incoming meteor 48 hours ahead of time, it will take a couple of hours to compute a rough impact zone (meaning, just which part of the GLOBE it will hit), and likely you won't have a decent small error probability zone (meaning, something less than 100 miles across) until 12 hours or less before impact.
Does anyone think that a 12 hour warning of an impact can have any actual damage mitigation effect? Sure, if the area being hit has (a) a relatively low population, AND (b) a very good transportation system. But virtually all places on the Earth fail at one of those. There's simply no way to effectively evacuate even a mid-size city in time, and it's not like you can put everyone into blast shelters like the old Nuclear War scenarios wanted us to do.
So, spend the money on ATLAS, and get ourselves some great astrometric data for future use. It just won't be any sort of useful in terms of damage avoidance.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
Well. That is a nice sum and a 'Thank You' should be in order. BUT, There are 'COMPLICATIONS' !
OH YEAH !
We will not see anything ... ever ... just wrong ... all wrong.
Last chance ... no chance.
This doesn't exactly fit the topic, but I don't know of a good place to even ask this question. At one time the official advice was to open windows during a tornado, so that pressure inside the building could equalize with the atmosphere, thus reducing destruction. I think that advice has been thrown out, because if a tornado does hit your house it's toast, and at least having your windows closed gives a little protection from flying debris and hail.
However, the opening windows advice does sound good for massive shock waves, like from a meteor. If you'll notice in the videos showing windows in apartment buildings blowing out, it was pretty evenly distributed across the building. It might have affected 1 in 5 windows or so, which to me appears to have been the necessary amount to equalize pressure in the building. My point is if if that number of windows had been opened on purpose, then I bet none would have had to have blown out.
Anyone know anything specific about this kind of thing?
Better known as 318230.
.. is that the more damage done by near earth objects, the more we'll spend trying to save ourselves from them.
Is it just me or does that seem like the wrong way of approaching this issue?
They don't need scan the entire sky evey night, only the part that might contain objects that put American lives at risk. Foreign nationals' lives should be none of our concern. Why should we be reponsible for the entire world? What matters most is The safety of America and her people.
I have a feeling NORAD knew about that meteoroid before the Russians saw it become a meteor and finally plunged into the lake and turned into a meteorite. I would also go so far as to say the Russian Military saw it coming in as well. The cold war may be "over", but both nations are nervous about North Korean and Iran and I would gather that they have been and will continue to closely monitor their own airspace for quite some time.